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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - French Doctors Perform a Partial Face

时间:2006-03-09 16:00:00

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS - French Doctors Perform a Partial Face Transplant; Medical, Moral Questions
By Katherine Gypson, Anne Pessala and George Grow

Broadcast: Tuesday, December 13, 2005

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty1.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Pat Bodnar. We begin this week with a report on the world's first partial face transplant.

VOICE ONE:

Then, a study shows that the drug tamoxifen can help prevent breast cancer in women at high risk.

VOICE TWO:

And, later, children and the importance of sleep.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Doctors in France have carried out the first partial face transplant. They took the nose, lips and chin from a woman who was declared brain-dead and used them to repair the face of another woman. The thirty-eight-year-old French woman who received the tissue had been severely2 injured in the face by her dog.

 
face transplant model
Last week the newspaper Le Parisien published a few comments that it said she made by telephone from her hospital bed. The woman, identified only as Isabelle D., said she was "doing very well." She asked that the media leave her and her family in peace.

VOICE TWO:

There were still questions, however, about how the woman came to be injured by her dog earlier this year. Some news reports have said she tried to kill herself with sleeping pills. There have been suggestions that her Labrador retriever was just trying to wake her. Her doctors have said repeatedly that she did not try to kill herself. The dog was put to death.

After the injuries, the woman was unable to speak or eat normally. She wore a mask to hide her injuries.

The injuries were so bad that doctors said it might be impossible to repair her face with normal methods. Faces have at least five kinds of skin. For this reason, normal repairs with other tissue do not work well for facial injuries. These operations can leave bad scars on the face.

VOICE ONE:

Medical progress has made it possible for several years now for doctors to transplant faces. But this is the first time they have performed the operation on a living patient. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in the United States had been expected to perform the first operation.

Many doctors, however, say they will not perform a face transplant. There are medical and moral issues. Medical experts note that a person does not need a face to survive. Many people wonder how patients would react when they see someone else's face on their body. A face is an important part of a person's identity.

A face transplant could help an injured patient eat and speak. But those activities can be assisted other ways.

Then there is the question of where to find faces to transplant. Many doctors believe that people would not want to provide the faces of dying family members.

VOICE TWO:

The transplant operation in Lyon lasted fifteen hours. It took place late last month.

The doctors were not sure what the transplanted face would look like. They say the woman's new face looks very much like her old one.

In a way, the transplant created a third face. It combined the bone structure of the patient with the skin and muscles of the donor3. Doctors say the patient looked at herself in a mirror and was very happy with her new face.

The nose, chin and lips came from a woman of the same age, blood type and skin color. The Sunday Times of London has reported that the tissue came from a woman who killed herself. It says her family gave permission for the transplant.

VOICE ONE:

The body often rejects organs from someone else. It could reject a new face. Transplant patients have to take strong medicines to prevent tissue rejection4. But these medicines come with their own risks.

Many doctors say facial transplants should not be performed on people who just want to look better. They say the operation should be saved for patients who cannot eat or speak on their own without a new face.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

You are listening to SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English, from Washington.

A study has confirmed that the drug tamoxifen can prevent breast cancer among women with a high risk of developing the disease.

Tamoxifen is a man-made hormone5 that blocks the action of the female hormone estrogen. Estrogen causes cancer cells to divide and spread. Earlier studies showed that tamoxifen reduces the chance of breast cancer developing again in women who had been successfully treated for the disease.

A research group in the United States organized the study with support from the National Cancer Institute. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the findings.

VOICE ONE:

The study began in nineteen ninety-two. It involved more than thirteen thousand women who were at high risk of developing breast cancer. All the women were thirty-five years of age and older. The risk of breast cancer increases with age. So women sixty years of age and older were chosen based on age alone.

About half of the women received tamoxifen. The others received an inactive substance, also known as a placebo6. Neither the women nor their doctors knew which one the women were taking.

The study found that after five years, women who had used tamoxifen were forty-nine percent less likely to get breast cancer. Study organizers then told the women if they were taking the drug or the placebo. They did this so every woman in the study could decide if she wanted to take the drug.

VOICE TWO:

Recently, scientists reported final results of the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial. They found that the women who used tamoxifen for at least five years were about forty-three percent less likely to get breast cancer than the other women. There were one hundred forty-five cases of invasive breast cancer among the healthy women who took the drug. Two hundred fifty women who took the placebo developed the disease.

The study organizers also examined possible side effects of tamoxifen. There was almost no difference in the number of heart attacks between the tamoxifen users and women who took the placebo. Women who took the drug reported fewer broken bones in areas such as the hips7, wrist and spine8. But there was an increased risk of blocked blood passages, and also cancer in the uterus.

The study organizers noted9 that other methods for preventing breast cancer are being tested. But in their words, "Tamoxifen remains10 the only proven chemopreventive treatment for breast-cancer risk reduction."

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Reducing the amount of sleep that students get directly affects their performance at school. An American study asked schoolteachers to look at the effects of sleep restriction11 in children between six and twelve years of age. The teachers found that children who stay up late have trouble thinking clearly and demonstrate more learning problems.

Gahan Fallone supervised the study at the Brown Medical School and Bradley Hospital in the state of Rhode Island. Doctor Fallone now works at the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology12 in Springfield, Missouri. He presented the results last month at a science reporters conference in Washington, D.C. The publication Sleep also reported the findings.

VOICE TWO:

The teachers were asked to complete weekly performance reports on seventy-four schoolchildren. The study lasted three weeks. During the period, Doctor Fallone and his team controlled the amount of sleep the children received.

One week, the children went to bed and awoke at their usual times. Another week, every child was kept awake later than normal. Each night, the youngest boys and girls had less than eight hours of sleep. The older ones were limited to six and one-half hours. During the final week of the study, each child received no less than ten hours of sleep a night.

The teachers were not told the amount of sleep the students received. The study found that students who received eight hours or less had the most difficulty remembering old information. They also had trouble learning new information, completing difficult work and following directions.

VOICE ONE:

The study did not find that sleep restriction caused hyperactivity in the children. The teachers reported that students were, in fact, a little less active at school when they got less sleep.

Doctor Fallone says the results provide experts and parents with a clear message: When a child has learning problems, the issue of sleep must be considered among the possible causes.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Katherine Gypson, Anne Pessala and George Grow. Cynthia Kirk was our producer. I'm Pat Bodnar.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Bob Doughty. Our programs are online at www.tingroom.com. Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 doughty Jk5zg     
adj.勇猛的,坚强的
参考例句:
  • Most of successful men have the characteristics of contumacy and doughty.绝大多数成功人士都有共同的特质:脾气倔强,性格刚强。
  • The doughty old man battled his illness with fierce determination.坚强的老人用巨大毅力与疾病作斗争。
2 severely SiCzmk     
adv.严格地;严厉地;非常恶劣地
参考例句:
  • He was severely criticized and removed from his post.他受到了严厉的批评并且被撤了职。
  • He is severely put down for his careless work.他因工作上的粗心大意而受到了严厉的批评。
3 donor dstxI     
n.捐献者;赠送人;(组织、器官等的)供体
参考例句:
  • In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下,接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
  • The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。
4 rejection FVpxp     
n.拒绝,被拒,抛弃,被弃
参考例句:
  • He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
  • The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。
5 hormone uyky3     
n.荷尔蒙,激素,内分泌
参考例句:
  • Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
  • This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
6 placebo placebo     
n.安慰剂;宽慰话
参考例句:
  • The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
  • The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。
7 hips f8c80f9a170ee6ab52ed1e87054f32d4     
abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯,耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 );[建筑学]屋脊;臀围(尺寸);臀部…的
参考例句:
  • She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
  • They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》
8 spine lFQzT     
n.脊柱,脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊
参考例句:
  • He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
  • His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。
9 noted 5n4zXc     
adj.著名的,知名的
参考例句:
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
10 remains 1kMzTy     
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹
参考例句:
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
11 restriction jW8x0     
n.限制,约束
参考例句:
  • The park is open to the public without restriction.这个公园对公众开放,没有任何限制。
  • The 30 mph speed restriction applies in all built-up areas.每小时限速30英里适用于所有建筑物聚集区。
12 psychology U0Wze     
n.心理,心理学,心理状态
参考例句:
  • She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
  • He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

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